“Hope you’re right, Jimmy, because Bob and I are going to clear up this mystery. That is, if you’ll give us a little help. A couple of hoodlums tried to kidnap Bob a while ago. He can give you an accurate description of them and you may be able to pull their pictures out of the files.” “We’ll find them for you if they’ve any record at all.” He pulled a blank form from a file and fired question after question at Bob on height, weight, color of eyes, and any possible peculiarities which they might have had. When he had finished both forms, he leaned back in his chair. “I’d call that an almost perfect description of these chaps. If we don’t dig them out of the files, I’ll miss my bet. We’ll get something for you before midnight. Good luck.” Bob and his uncle left the identification bureau and took an elevator down to the main floor. Bob’s hands still smarted from the scratches they had suffered from the barberry and he kept the handkerchiefs wrapped around them. “I want to drop in at the police station and question the man caught last night,” said Merritt Hughes, “but we can stop at your apartment on our way down and give it the once-over. We might find something of interest in the hall.” The federal agent flagged a taxi and they sped swiftly toward Bob’s apartment. “Well, how does it feel to be a federal agent, even though you’re only a provisional one?” his uncle asked. “I’m not quite used to it,” replied Bob, taking out the small leather case and extracting the card and badge which it contained. He turned the badge over carefully in his fingers. His name was engraved on the back and behind this small emblem stood the mighty law enforcement machinery of Uncle Sam. Bob thrilled even though he was as yet a small and comparatively unimportant part of that great system, which was rapidly building up a worldwide reputation for “getting its man.” Merritt Hughes settled back in the cushions. “This is likely to be a rather long-drawn out case,” he said, “and from the way it’s started, it may be extremely dangerous. When it comes to that, I want you to step aside and let the regular agents take the chances. Do you understand, Bob?” “But I’m not afraid of trouble,” insisted Bob. “That isn’t it. When the pinches come we want men who have been tried under fire in there. You’ll be used as an inside man in the archives division and in that capacity you are going to be highly important. There must have been a leak somewhere, else how would it have been known that a part of the new radio development had been sent over for filing? It will be up to you to find where this information leaked before Tully Ross and Condon Adams learn it.” The federal agent paused a moment, before continuing. “After we find the leak in your department, we’ll have something to work back on. That should lead us to the man or the men who now have the papers that disappeared last night.” “Won’t the man arrested last night be the key to that?” asked Bob.